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The City of Spokane and a group of local organizations have penned a strategic plan designed to help the city and the Inland Northwest achieve an Innovation Economy.

Nearly 60 percent of the new jobs in the knowledge-based economy of the early 21st century will require skills that are held by just 20 percent of the present workforce, states a new report released by the National Coalition for Advanced Manufacturing (NACFAM). The Case for Enhancing American Workforce Skills examines a growing skills gap in the nation's manufacturing sector and the problems employers have in finding skilled workers able to deal with technological changes in the workplace.

Until now, the opportunities have been fairly limited for tech-based economic developers to learn from the lessons of fellow practitioners running successful entrepreneurship programs.

Small businesses in the U.S. should consider a wide and complex range of factors before investing in foreign patents, recommends a new report prepared by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO).

C. Michael Cassidy, president of the Georgia Research Alliance, has been appointed to the governing board of the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

Joint Venture: Silicon Valley has named Russell Hancock as its new president and CEO.

C. Michael Cassidy, president of the Georgia Research Alliance, has been appointed to the governing board of the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

Joint Venture: Silicon Valley has named Russell Hancock as its new president and CEO.

Dr. Lee Eiden, SBIR Program Coordinator for the U.S. Department of Education for nearly seven years, is shifting positions within the agency to work for the Office of Management/Chief Information Office. Dr. Eiden's contributions toward improving the state-federal partnership for SBIR outreach and technical assistance will be greatly missed by the state and local tech-based economic development community.

The director of the Arkansas Department of Economic Development has announced his retirement. Jim Pickens will remain in the position until his replacement is named, according to local news reports.

Before ending its 2003 session, the Rhode Island legislature signed off on nearly all of the technology-based economic development (TBED) initiatives at the core of Gov. Donald Carcieri's strategy to help the state rebound from the down economy. First outlined in his Feb. 4 State of the State Address (see the Feb.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced earlier this week the availability of $6 million in USDA Rural Development grant funds to support rural economic and community development efforts.

The unsettled nature of the venture capital industry is well depicted in two differing reports released Tuesday. Both detail venture capital investments for the second quarter of 2003, but offer a conflicting picture of U.S. investing activity.

The first three installments of SSTI's four-part look at how TBED will play in the 2006 legislative priorities of the governors can be found in the Digest archives at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/digest.htm

Oklahoma

Contrary to popular belief, intellectual capital and university collaboration - not just lower costs - primarily attract companies to locate R&D activities in locations away from their home country, according to a new study sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Hard evidence of the increasing global research competence discussed in the Thursby's paper above was provided last week when the Singapore Ministry of Trade & Industry (MTI) announced plans last week to commit $7.5 billion ($4.6 billion US) over the next five years to sustain innovation-driven growth through economic-oriented R&D. All figures below are in U.S. dollars.

Stem cell research, an expanded tax zone redevelopment initiative and faculty/researcher recruitment are all beneficiaries in the fiscal year 2007 budget proposal submitted by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich last week. In addition, while overall funding for the state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) is down 16 percent from the FY 2006 appropriation, the governor's request includes several new programs to assist technology entrepreneurship.

Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell is using the midterm budget request as the vehicle to substantially overhaul how the state supports the entire economic development process. Connecticut Innovations, one of the nation's oldest state-created equity finance programs for tech businesses, would be consolidated with departments that cover focus areas ranging from health education and housing to traditional economic development financing.

Improving higher education is a top priority in almost every state, but fewer than half of states have set specific, measurable goals to track their progress in enrolling, retaining and graduating students, according to a new report from Jobs for the Future (JFF), By the Numbers: State Goals for Increasing Postsecondary Attainment.

Despite a decrease of $44.6 million in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding from fiscal year 2003,  Boston held the top spot in total NIH funding for FY 2004, maintaining its lead over New York. The two cities had $1.57 billion and $1.25 billion, respectively.

Blair Carnahan will be the first director of the new Columbus Regional Technology Center in Columbus, Ga. The new facility will house an incubator, the Columbus Georgia Tech regional office and the Columbus office of the Small Business Development Center.

The Sacramento Regional Technology Alliance is losing its executive director as Clare Emerson has announced she is relocating to oversee AEA's Texas office.

John Kotek, formerly with Argonne National Laboratory-West, has been named deputy manager of the Department of Energy's Idaho Operations Office. The office oversees the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.

Utah House Speaker Marty Stephens began his term as President of the National Conference of State Legislatures during its annual meeting last week.

We recognize that SSTI's annual conference quickly has become the premier professional development event annually for the tech-based economic development field. It's quite an honor, but it is also quite an obligation. Our conference participants have come to expect a level of unsurpassed quality. At least, that's what they tell us in the evaluations.

The backdrop for this year's annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) was painted in budget cuts, tax increases and nearly three years of gloomy economic news. Only adding salt to the wounds, the meeting was held in California, a state whose FY 2003 deficit – now carried over into FY 2004 because of partisan squabbling – could swallow the entire budget approved in more than half of the states in attendance.